Evidence of meeting #69 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was farmers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
I don't know whether it's appropriate, Mr. Chairman—but I seem to keep getting interrupted—but I could certainly put forth a motion that we table this motion immediately and go on to discuss the APF, if you'd like to.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
No, I'm suggesting that we move on to the other area. It's not to vote on it.
Conservative
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
You can't vote on your tabling motion. We could break the agreement that you agreed on yesterday, but it's not unusual for this government to break its trust in agreements.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
What was the agreement? We didn't vote with you yesterday.
Liberal
Conservative
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
You gave your word, and your word should be as valuable as a vote.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Mr. Miller, I understand that you have the floor. You have the right to move this motion. So if you want to move the motion to table the motion in order to move on to the next one on the agenda, you can do that.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
I'm going to continue on with my debate on the motion.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Okay, Mr. Miller, you decided not to move the motion. You have the floor.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Just to go on, Mr. Chairman, I have to point out that this is proof in hard copy of the kinds of comments.
I have another one from Paul Mistele of the OFA in Ontario. Mr. Steckle knows him quite well. He said that Ottawa didn't consult the agriculture sector before launching the new Canadian farm families options program. Again that wasn't true, but it was the kind of criticism that was coming out there.
He said that he was skeptical about where the money to support low-income farm families was coming from. I know from my discussions with Mr. Mistele that he was worried that basically the money wasn't going to get out to farmers, and what have you.
Now, with the minister's decision on the 20th to phase this out over the next year, this money will be directed to other programs, which has been well documented here.
The new OFA president, Geri Kamenz, stated that it is an excellent social program, but the sector in Ontario doesn't want a social program. It needs farm income support programs. So based on that, that's where the minister is going to put this money.
He said: “I think a guaranteed farm income is abject failure. It will do more to create a welfare state than resolve the issue of rural poverty.” That was in The Western Producer on April 12.
I could go on, Mr. Chair. Last year on October 12, OFA's Ron Bonnett stated that “there does not seem to be widespread support for this program.” He went on to say that Minister Strahl, in announcing the program, has missed the key contributing factor of agriculture's income crisis: low commodity prices. In all fairness, no agriculture minister in history that I know has had much impact on low commodity prices.
But I do know that two years in a row, this government put record amounts of money out to farmers, and what have you. In fact, I remember that last year in August, we put a record amount of money out through the CAIS program, and there were still four and a half months left in the year. So I'm not sure what the final figure was, but it certainly was record dollars.
The money was put up by this government; announcements were made by other governments, but not really carried through. We made sure that this was carried through. That's going back to the $755 million in the oil seeds and grains industry.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
A point of order, Mr. Chair.
Just to be clear, I believe that the $750 million was booked by the previous Minister of Finance, Ralph Goodale.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Guys, let's have a little more decorum around the table, please.
Mr. Miller, you have the floor.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
For the record, the money to which I just referred, Mr. Chairman, was announced, and farmers were told that the money would flow by December 1 of that year.
It never flowed at all until after the Conservative Party of Canada was elected to government on January 23. One of the first issues that the Prime Minister did was order that the money be released.
So there were two and a half months, Mr. Chairman, when that money could have flowed, should have flowed, but didn't. To this day, we're not sure why. Anyway, I hope this clears that up.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
On a point of order, I could tell the member why he should know that. It was because an election was on. The previous government didn't want to be accused of mailing out cheques to farmers while an election went on. That would be the first criticism you'd hit.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
That's not a point of order; it's a point of debate, gentlemen.
Mr. Miller, you have the floor.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
They could have gone out before then.
Now that I was interrupted again, I have to go back and find my—
Conservative
Garry Breitkreuz Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
They knew an election was coming so they decided to make another promise, knowing they wouldn't keep it, right?
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Without getting into election talk, that certainly seems like it would be true, Mr. Breitkreuz.
Here again is another comment that Mr. Bonnett, for whom I have a lot of respect, said:
I wish they'd done some more consultation with farmers before they went ahead with this program. It does not address the core issues we have been pushing, especially the need for companion programs.
This was in Ontario Farmer on August 8.
It's one of these things that is like the CAIS in its original days, one of those programs where some farmers will get a big cheque and others will be mad as hell.
One of these issues we heard about in our cross-country travels a month ago, Mr. Chairman, was companion programs and regional programs. It was pretty clear to all of us in every region of the province--in almost every province, but certainly every region--that we need some of these. That's another good reason for why we should be getting on to the APF report. The sooner we get talking about those, and the report, the better.
The Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture even has something to say here. They said:
...while there's no question that the majority of farmers need help, this program doesn't fully address the major issues facing the province's farming industry.
Going back to my comments a minute ago about companion programs or whatever, we certainly heard in the Nova Scotia area about regional programs and companion programs. They also suggest that this program may be another program that's “western-centric”. I'm not just sure what they are referring to there, but obviously the main point of bringing this out is their dissatisfaction with this program. That was in The Chronicle-Herald on August 2 of last year.
Lloyd Evans, with Horticulture Nova Scotia, said that “the program isn't really much of a winner for Nova Scotia because many horticultural producers wouldn't meet the revenue criteria...”. That, again, was in The Chronicle-Herald on August 2.
One of the things we found in the horticulture industry, which I have a lot of in one region in my riding, in our travels across the country is that the CAIS program did not work for these people. Obviously this gentleman, Mr. Evans, is quite concerned that the farm options program isn't going to work for the horticulture there. I know what the horticulture and the fruit industry means to Nova Scotia. So a bit more there....
I'm getting into some comments now from some of our own committee members, Mr. Chairman. The mover of this motion said that the government is adopting a “blame the victim” approach. We know that's a typical comment for Mr. Easter, but it's certainly not true. He goes on to say that “it leaves the impression that if these guys”--I presume when he says “these guys” he's meaning farmers--“just take a skills training course everything would be hunky-dory on the farm”. That was in the Canadian Press on July 31.
You remember making these comments, do you, Mr. Easter?